CANADIAN ART INK DRAWINGS

Canadian Art Ink Drawings, From a distance
the city appears like an ominous gear propelled by an endless sea of
faceless denizens. Spiralling centrifugally around our metropolitan
routines the scene plays like some sort of hypnotic talisman. With
nameless people perpetually filling streets and fading into the
horizon a frenzied fit of inertia moves towards some unknown goal.
The tombstone towers circle the periphery imprisoning the hordes
while thousands of anonymous little bubble people spin amidst the
simultaneously alienating and assimilated crowds.

“The City of
Gears” is one of the most prominent symbolic images in my “Hey
Apathy!” ink drawings. When I first conceived this imagery I was
working out of a secluded basement studio and envisioned the
metropolis as a cold nihilistic conglomeration of superficial and
commercial ideologies. In order to express this I developed these
dystopian crowd scenes which likened the people and buildings to a
factory giant cog wheel. The original drawings were featured in my
inaugural exhibition in Jan 2002. This set included several small ink
drawings as well as a number of large scale and mural sized artworks.
Since that time I continued to use the symbol and have developed an
entire mythology behind this imaginary place. However while this
faceless hieroglyphic version remains a staple in my stories I now
consider it as a distanced perspective of the big city and have
created a close up counter part in which the unidentifiable
characters reveal themselves as massive crowds of diverse
individuals.

This particular
rendition of the “City of Gears” was made while I was working as
a full time graffiti street artist in downtown Toronto. It is
interesting to note that this version has a lot more motion and
energy than the original drawings made a few years earlier. The
change in the composition was directly influenced by working in
public with life and action all around me. In the initial drawings
there is a decidedly serene sense of alienation were as this work
shows a much more rapid vertigo type effect. This drawing was done
with acrylic inks on a 4 ft. X 6 ft. stretched canvas. In addition to
being made while I was sitting in the streets the work also travelled
around the city with me for various performances & festivals.
Eventually the work sustained a considerable amount of damage due to
the harsh conditions but I've never regretted sharing the image and
telling it's tale out in the street.